Factors that determine visibility
If all efforts at solving the issue prove abortive, it may be because you haven’t figured out the root cause of the problem. Google owns YouTube, and similar to its parent company, it works with machine-learning algorithms. These algorithms determine your channel’s visibility based on the following criteria:
Continue ReadingA YouTube channel serves as a platform to present video(s) to a wide range of people. Presently, there are over 800 million YouTube users and 4 billion videos available on this platform. This is the second-largest search engine in the world, only behind Google. Your success on YouTube depends on the number of views and subscribers recorded.
Most YouTube users struggle to remember the name of a channel. Once they land on YouTube, the first place they visit is the search bar. This is an easy way for users to get what they want by simply typing in a keyword.
This technique makes YouTube a whole lot similar to Google, where pages are ranked based on SEO, among other factors. To improve visibility on YouTube, you actually have to take a leaf from the Google algorithm. Because the truth is, people will easily find you through the search bar than getting an invite to your channel.
To ensure your page appears higher up on YouTube search results, here are Tips to help you out.
Meta-data is a piece of information about a video that gives users more information about what the video is all about. On YouTube, the Meta-data is a combination of title, description, and video tags.
You are optimizing each session that makes up the Meta-data will improve your ranking on search results. Even if you end up featuring high on search results, the quality of your content will decide the reaction of your audience to your video. If you give your audience what they want, they will have no choice but to subscribe to your channel.
However, if your video sucks, even with a well-optimized Meta-data, it’s going to be hard to attain a certain level of visibility. For a moderately optimized Meta-data, you will want to feature the primary keyword in the tag, description, and title.
Since the description gives room for paragraphs and long sentences, the keyword may appear 2-3 times while it can feature once on the tag and title.
The description is the part that provides lengthy information about the video. Nonetheless, a well-written description doesn’t depend on the length of the text, but how much information is contained in it. One thing most YouTube users do is to include the same keyword used in the title in the description.
A description may also contain URL to your website or a specific page on your website where users can find the information contained in the video in text.
The thumbnail is the image searchers will see before the video is played. The thumbnail is like a background image for the video. Once it’s clicked on, the video automatically starts playing.
Given the circumstances surrounding the thumbnail, you want to treat it like a book cover. It has to be intriguing, visually appealing and persuading. A new thumbnail lures viewers to click and can have a massive impact on the number of clicks and views generated. This makes your thumbnail even more critical than the title because it determines whether an individual will click or not.
Thumbnails with human images tend to receive higher plays rates than thumbnails with logos or objects. However, ensure the image you choose as your thumbnail relates to the information conveyed in the video.
For instance, Your Video can’t be about “digital marketing,” and your thumbnail is an image of a movie star. This will obviously lead viewers into thinking they’re on the wrong page.
Adding End-screen actually comes with detailed instructions that explain why the majority of users ignore this feature. Before adding an End-screen, you should know that YouTube is quite strict on End-screen. Every End-screen is reviewed in a bid to improve users’ experience. Hence, an End-screen designed by you may never appear on your video.
These rules may seem complicated, but the End-screen gives you an edge over competitors. It’s a smart way to include keywords that invariably increases your ranking. If you’re lucky enough and your End-screen actually appears, your chances of appearing higher up on search results increases.
If the process for adding Endscreen seems a bit complex, you can use cards as an alternative. Cards are easy to use and can appear at any point in your video. Apart from improving your SEO, it also drives engagement, making your video more interactive. In some cases, cards can contain links to your website or convey meaningful information to your audience.
You can’t solely rely on YouTube if you want to improve visibility. Adding YouTube videos of your website page can also generate a substantial amount of viewers provided your website traffic is decent. This can only be achieved with good SEO.
In a scenario where your page is not optimized correctly, search engines won’t even bother going through your page. Hence, if your video ranking is weak, it could be because your page is poor. Thus, your page should be well optimized to ensure you’re videos equally ranked.
Even though it could be challenging to rank all your pages organically if you continue to push out high-quality content, the SEO of your page will also improve and so will the ranking. When embedding YouTube videos on your page, ensure the video stays relevant to the page it’s attached to.
Google indexes one video at a time. Search engine crawlers stop crawling on a page after picking up the first video. Hence, multiple video pages aren’t actually a good idea. If you’re trying to rank one video, ensure the video is at the top of your page.
These optimization tricks are the difference between having a thousand or hundred likes on your page. If well optimized, your page ranking will significantly improve within a short period. Ask any Youtuber with over 1 million likes, and they will tell you that the secret to pulling in those figures actually lies in optimization.